The best live country band in the world stopped into Austin’s Radio East on Friday night (4-25) on their current “Unlit Matches” tour to regale fans in the town the band originates from.
Reports of Silverada’s demise are greatly exaggerated. On the contrary, they just hit the road, and the world’s greatest country band will be filling hearts and melting faces.
Earth-shaking news for the world of Austin-based honky tonk band Silverada, the entire Texas music scene, and country music in general. Steel guitar player Zachary “Bean Judge” Moulton has decided to leave the band.
In 2024, the Jackalope Jamboree (June 27-29) still had some of the topmost names in independent country like Charley Crockett, Kaitlin Butts, and Silverada. It had legends of Red Dirt like Jason Boland, and The Randy Rogers Band.
Mike and the Moonpies? Silverada? The only names you really need to know are Mike Harmeier, Omar Oyoque, Catlin Rutherford, Zachary Moulton, and Taylor Englert. If they’re involved, it’s probably tits.
One of the very first festivals that saw the value and rising swell in independent country and roots was Pickathon just outside of Portland, Oregon. This was the place where the very careers of landmark artists such as Sturgill Simpson, The Avett Brothers, Lake Street Dive, and many more were launched.
Taking a little bit of the funky country spirit from “The Snowman” Jerry Reed, mixing it with the poetic, yet unpretentious tongue-in-cheek attitude of Roger Miller, and infusing it all with an imaginative and untethered take on a retro style of 60’s and 70’s country…
The chemistry of this band is just so perfect, not just unto itself, but for this very time and place. They’re classic, but cool. That’s the reason they aren’t about to compromise anything they do just for a quick step up the ladder.
Drawing influences from both their native environs, as well as bordering states like Texas for a more open sound, and Wyoming for some Western flavor—and then hopscotching a few states to draw on Southern rock as well—The Barlow is one of those bands you immediately warm up to.
Legend will be told for years henceforth about the time that Mike and the Moonpies joined with Jamie Lin Wilson for a select group of shows in Texas called the January Jamboree. Nobody expected this: a rare Texas tornado in January that left the crowds raving about how these shows were some for the history books.
Cinematographer Kelsey Hammer-Parks and music journalist Nathan Emerson have set out to create a new documentary about a dying music instrument and those trying to save it. That Thing, That Sound is a musical documentary on the steel guitar—often a topic of discussion when the talk turns to the dying roots of country music.